


teach me how to learn

by dnbroughs



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, bill's late, richie is too, stan is a teacher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 04:12:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17842208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dnbroughs/pseuds/dnbroughs
Summary: Stanley Uris considered himself a man of many talents. He could recite well detailed spiel about any bird at the drop of a hat, he had got washing his clothes down to a precise science so none of the colours would even dare to run, and he had to admit that he was quite flexible, although he wouldn’t ever admit that on a first date. Yet, despite his vehement efforts, despite his dedication and despite his might, he cannot get fucking glitter out of his hair. He’s tried washing it, brushing it, even vacuuming it once with Eddie’s careful guidance. He dreads the days when it is inexplicably part of his routine, and he prays and prays and prays that he’ll be able to get it out of his curly locks come bedtime.He never fucking does, though.





	teach me how to learn

**Author's Note:**

> okay so i've had this written for god knows how long and i've tried to carry it on like my heart says yes but my brain says no so who knows i might add another part to this someday but i hope u guys like what i've got so far !

Stanley Uris considered himself a man of many talents. He could recite well detailed spiel about any bird at the drop of a hat, he had got washing his clothes down to a precise science so none of the colours would even dare to run, and he had to admit that he was quite flexible, although he wouldn’t ever admit that on a first date. Yet, despite his vehement efforts, despite his dedication and despite his might, he cannot get fucking glitter out of his hair. He’s tried washing it, brushing it, even vacuuming it once with Eddie’s careful guidance. He dreads the days when it is inexplicably part of his routine, and he prays and prays and prays that he’ll be able to get it out of his curly locks come bedtime.

He never fucking does, though.

And so, Stan was in a foul mood as he pulled up in the parking lot this morning at precisely five minutes to seven. As usual, he was the second car in the lot and he took the time to count the binders on his passenger seat again before he gathered them in his arms, to make sure he had replied to any emails he had to and ran over his lesson plans in his head before stepping out of the car and making his way towards the staff entrance of the small elementary school.

Just as he had expected, Ben was sat behind his desk at the main office, looking bleary eyed as he sipped at his coffee and flipped through papers that Stan would ask about if it wasn’t so early in the morning and if Ben didn’t look so tired. Stan threw him a smile and waved at him the best he could with his arms full, a wave of fondness washing over him as Ben offered him a bright smile in spite of his fatigue, and he started his trek along the red bricked corridor to his classroom.

Stan had started teaching just four years ago, starting off with Kindergarten kids at Derry Elementary before moving to the fifth grade the year after, and he’s stayed there ever since. His psychology degree was supposed to lead Stan into the world of therapy, yet instead, he got pulled into early years development, which ultimately led to him training to be a teacher. His father was more than displeased at sudden change in career choice, hoping his son would be a hotshot shrink in no time, but Donald Uris had to admit that it was nice to have Stan close to home. He also had to admit that Stan was good at his job. 

The kids loved him. They giggled at his sarcastic remarks, groaned at him whenever he set homework and were unafraid to come to him with their 10-year-old problems, seeking his fair judgement and level headed advice. Yes, Stan Uris loved his kids dearly, he even admitted to shedding a tear here and there when his classes finally left for middle school, and he’d be damned if they weren’t going to grow up in a safe and loving place. The thought of packing it in and walking the career path his parents had hoped he would pave after college was a tempting one when he came home with stack after stack of homework sheets and essays and school books, but the way the kids eyes would light up when they saw his neatly written praise on their last homework assignment was more than enough to quash the idea. In short, Stan loved his class, and his class loved him.

Stan pushed open his classroom door with his shoulder and blindly searched the cold wall with nimble fingers until they settle on the light switch, and he flooded the room with the white, artificial glare of the ceiling lights. He walked the well known path to his desk at the front of the room, reaching down to pick up a stray pencil by his chair after he set his folders down on the clutter free table. He took pride in his classroom, keeping it clean and tidy at all times.  _ An untidy working space means an untidy mind,  _ his mother had always told him, and he very much believed it to be true. 

Over the summer, he had spent a full day painting new displays on the walls, changing the colour scheme of the room from light yellow to sky blue, penning sparrows onto the walls with help from Richie. All of his pencils had been sharpened, papers organised, glue sticks neatly stacked and reading books tidily arranged on shelves.

“You’re like Mary Poppins when she does all that clicky shit.” Richie had astutely commented, trying to snap his fingers for added effect, but he somehow ended up punching himself in the face.

Stan wished Richie took the same pride in his own classroom instead of giving Stan shit for doing so himself. Richie was content to replace the framed picture of Bill Nye above his desk with an updated snap and buy a new board pen every year. He loved his friend dearly, but he often wonders how he even became qualified to teach, considering he was a health hazard on legs, always tripping over chair legs or barely skimming the children’s faces when he got too animated with his hand movements. Stan had been teaching for a year longer than Richie had but he had known Richie all of his life. In fact, Stan likes to credit himself as the guiding force for getting him off his ass and into the workforce.

It had been a Sunday, when they were both Juniors at UCLA, and Stan was putting the finishing touches to his project for his Primary Education class. He was sat cross legged on the floor of his cramped apartment, blasting Abba, the ground in front of him covered in newspaper as he dabbed his project delicately with his one dollar paintbrush and paint. Everything was peaceful in the world of Stan, that was, until Richie bounded through the door in a whirlwind of neon colours and unruly hair, already speaking at one hundred miles per hour.

“Stanley the Manley, you’ll never believe what the  _ fuck  _ just happened. So I’m sat there, enjoying my weekly Dorito date with that weird guy down the street and-  _ what the flippity fuck is that? _ ”

Stan looked up at him, carefully setting his brush down on the newspaper and moving curls out of his eyes, following Richie’s gaze down to his project, standing sturdily in front of Stan.

“It’s homework.” Stan said, stretching his stiff arms above his head. “It’s a fish.”

Before he knew it, Richie was kneeling on the floor next to Stan, eye to eye with his papier-mache creation, staring it out with trepidation in his gaze.

“So I’ve gotta do a shit ton of consumer research just to have the  _ chance  _ to grace the airwaves, but all you’ve gotta do is make a fish?” Richie whined, sitting back on his heels and pouting at Stan. He reached out his hand to touch, but Stan quickly swatted it away before leaning back down to apply another coat of purple paint to his aquatic masterpiece.

“If you’re that bothered, why don’t you train to become a teacher, Trashmouth.” Stan chastised, ignoring the ‘humph’ that escaped Richie’s as he watched him paint. Stan never actually expected him to do it. He had turned up at Stan’s door almost a year to the day later, holding a handmade dog, wearing a bowtie and donning a kippah on over its curly ears. Stan had answered the door with a hand on his hip, eyebrow raised. Richie had only grinned, his cheeks turning red with the force of him holding back a laugh at his own joke.

“It’s a Cocker Staniel.”

Stan slammed the door in his face.

And now here they were, almost five years later, Richie running late as usual and Stan dreading the looming presence of glitter on his Thursday morning.

Parent-Teacher conferences were the bane of Stan’s existence. He held two every year, one in October while the kids were relatively new in the class and one later on in the year, normally before they left. Usually, the parents didn’t care at all or seemingly cared too much, berating Stan for things as trivial as how he worded homework sheets to the way he dressed. The sheer stress of such things meant that Stan spent the short hour between school ended and his first appointment with Eddie, the school nurse, drinking juice boxes with an ice pack held securely to his head while they chatted aimlessly and watched reruns of Judge Judy on the room’s shitty TV set. This year, though, was going to be the first time he’d handle the parents smoothly and professionally, and he certainly wasn’t going to have a breakdown in his store cupboard afterwards. No way.

He heaved in a sigh, revelling in the slight burn of his lungs as he drank in the air. It was getting closer to half past now, and Stan finally started to get into gear, setting up for the day, refusing to look at the offending vials of metallic crap until he had to. It was 8:55 when Richie finally pulled up outside, fifteen minutes later than he usually was, and he didn’t even afford himself the luxury of mithering Stan as he sprinted down the corridor, hands full of boxes and slammed his classroom door behind him. Richard Tozier was well suited to be a second grade teacher, Stan thought, considering he was a second grader himself.

He opened his door at 8:59, only just making it back to his desk before the whiny ring of the school bell flooded his ears and children started to walk through the door, unbuttoning their coats as they bid him good morning, groaning as they saw what Stan had written on the whiteboard, and Stan couldn’t help but smirk. If they were going to destroy his classroom and his life with pipe cleaners and glitter glue, he was going to make their brains explode with maths.

 

* * *

Stan was sticky by the time 4:30 rolled by. In an effort to make his class a bit more cheerful, he had allowed them to make name tags for their books and work so their parents could easily identify them that evening. He hadn’t, however, thought it was such a good idea when Timothy Jones had walked into him with a full pot of PVA glue, subsequently spilling it down his neatly pressed chinos, covering them in a shiny, brown stain that was going to be a bitch to get out. He couldn’t possibly greet parents looking like there had been an oil spill on his trousers, so in a last resort to gain some semblance of put togetherness, he went knocking on Richie’s door.

“Woah there Stanley,” he grinned as he cut what looked like a melted dinosaur out of a piece of blue card, adding it to a pile of similarly drawn jurassic creatures. “Looks like someone didn’t make it to the can in time. Say, I didn’t know you were into watersports.”

Stan didn’t dignify him with a response, instead sighing and muttering a halfhearted ‘Beep Beep’. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any pants, have you?”

Stan should have known to fear the worse as Richie’s face lighted up with mirth and he spoke to Stan with his Southern Belle drawl.

“Well, Sir, I surely surely do.”

And that’s how Stan ended up sat behind his desk, listening to parents talk about their kids as if they were the only ones on the planet, wearing a pair of hot pink yoga pants that barely fitted him, never mind Richie.

(“Where the fuck did you get these?” “They’re Eddie Spaghetti’s. I-” “Never mind, I’d rather not know.”)

He nodded empathetically as they talked about their children, resisted the urge to roll his eyes as they told him how to do his job, but under no circumstances did he stand up from the table. Propriety be damned, he didn’t want to be fired for public indecency.  He was almost done at five minutes to six, his schedule closely adhered to, and if all went well, he’d be in bed by seven. He only had one appointment left, and he let himself relax in his chair, straightening his papers and ticking off names as he waited.

Five minutes passed. And then ten. And then fifteen. It was quarter past six, and he was still waiting for his last appointment to turn up. A pang of annoyance gnawed at Stan. He had been preparing for this for over a month and the parents didn’t even have the decency to listen to him talk about their own kids, for God’s sake. Huffing, he started to pack away, stuffing sheets back into their binders when a ball of emerald and auburn and brown came charging through the door with a small boy in tow.

“I’m so s-sorry, I thought Noah’s mother was coming instead.” the man groaned, panting as he ran a hand through his son’s hair.

He quickly caught his breath and made his way in front of Stan, offering him his hand to shake. If Stan wasn’t so annoyed, he would have noticed the way his blue eyes sparkled or the warmth of his touch or the way his mouth quirked as he spoke. But Stan was irritated, so instead he shook the man’s hand and refused to look at him as he pulled his sheets back out. Stan quickly realised, though, that Noah was stood next to his father, grinning up at Stan.

He quickly softened, smiling back at the boy. Noah was a boisterous member of his class, yes, but he was polite and was quiet when Stan needed him to be and often had an amusing anecdote about his Aunt Bev and Uncle Georgie. Noah Phillips-Denbrough was a good kid, and Stan liked him very much.

“Hey buddy.” he greeted as Noah waved back, his grin widening as he shot back an exuberant ‘hi!’, almost shaking as he gripped to his father’s arm.

Looking at the pair now, Stan could obviously see the family ties. He had had a few dealings with Audra Phillips, and from what Stan could gather, she was a reserved woman who only seemed to speak when she was spoken to, quite unlike her son, who was rowdy to say the least. While Noah had inherited his mother’s swarthy skin and tightly coiled locks, it was easy to see his father in him. Their eyes both lit up in the same carefree way when Stan looked at them and the smile on their faces seemed to be permanent. That, and the blue hue of their eyes were almost identical. While Stan knew divorce often made kids shrink into themselves, Noah had done anything but, and he thinks Mr. Denbrough had been part of the reason why.

“Sorry we’re so late, Mr Uris.” Noah beamed, no evidence of regret traceable on his face, and Stan’s grin involuntarily widened.

“Don’t worry about it Noah.” he said, throwing him a wink that made the young boy dissolve into giggles. “Hey, why don’t you go and finish your drawing from today while I chat to your dad?” he suggested, and Noah didn’t have to be asked twice before he was sitting at one of the rickety desks and scribbling away.

Stan turned his attention back to the man in front of him, cutting him off with a wave of his hand as he tried to speak again, probably to apologise again. “Why don’t we get started, Mr Denbrough.”

“Bill, please.” he insisted, and the smile on his face had Stan repressing a blush.

“Okay then,  _ Bill, _ ” Stan didn’t miss the man’s chuckle, “Let’s talk about Noah’s progress so far.”

In all fairness to Stan, he was completely professional from there on in, only making eye contact when appropriate, never letting himself stray from the topic of Bill’s son, and he certainly didn’t let himself get excited when Bill pushed the sleeves of his dress shirt up to his elbows. Stanley Uris was a paragon of a teacher, answering questions thoughtfully and easily. So what if Bill’s appointment lasted twenty minutes longer than it should have, it’s not like Stan was counting.

It went so well, however, that Stan had ignored one huge, almighty, dirty big fat flaw. He had completely forgotten that nothing good ever happens to him, and sooner or later, it was all going to go tits up. Fortunately, he didn’t have to wait long for it to happen.

“Thanks a lot for seeing us, Mr Uris.” Bill had a smile on his face and his voice was dripping with an appreciation that had Stan blushing.

Stan waved his hand in front of him, turning to smile at Noah, who was once again glued to Bill’s side. “Thank you guys for coming.” He shot him a small wink, making the boy beam up at him.

When he turned back to Bill, there was a look clouding his piercing eyes that Stan couldn’t quite decipher, yet it made the warmth on his cheeks deepen further, and before he knew it, Bill was standing out of his chair, arm out in front of him to shake, and Stan was following suit.

He only realised what a huge fuck up it was when Noah burst into fits of giggles.

“Mr. Uris why are your pants pink?” he squeaked out in between laughs, clutching onto Bill’s arm to hold himself up.

Stan’s cheeks burned now, and he was pretty sure you could see him in the dark with the intensity of his blush. He glanced at Bill out of the corner of his eye, surprised to find that his cheeks were the colour of his pants, and he didn’t miss the way his eyes ran over Stan’s somewhat scantily clad legs.

He cleared his throat, the deep bass of his chuckle reverberating in Stan’s chest as he pushed a stray strand of auburn hair from his eyes. “The pink suits you.”

All Stan could do was limply shake the man’s hand, squeak out a pathetic goodbye and usher the pair hastily from the room.

He let his head fall with a thunk against the pink painted door as he shut it closed behind them. Stan had prided himself on keeping himself composed for the past five years, no matter how hard it was. He had people complain about him when his shirt sleeves were too short or when the amount of time designated to reading was deemed ‘questionable’. The way Stan was feeling now had to stop. Yes, he’d had crushes before, but never on a parent. It was hard enough for him being gay in Derry, it was even harder to try to be so and teach at the same time. The last thing he needed was a silly schoolboy crush to come along and wreck the order he’d created.

So, Stan did what he usually did when he’s had, what he’d consider, a stressful day: go home, eat a shit ton of ice cream and watch Say Yes To The Dress until his eyes melt.

Thank God it’s Friday.

**Author's Note:**

> say hi on tumblr @ charlesxavirs !


End file.
